So You Wanna Sound Like You Listen to NPR...
You have the fancy liberal-arts education, you read the right books and drop references to recent New Yorker articles (they don't have to know you only found time to skim the abstract on the website...), you form opinions that sound well-thought out on pertinent topics, like the progress of diplomacy in the Middle East, or the demise of the print media world, or whether or not Lindsay Lohan seeks the train-wreck attention, or is just harassed.
But you're still missing something. That gold star next to your name, that extra layer of polish on your cocktail-party conversation, that wheat-colored eco-friendly canvas tote bag that says "I have achieved complete liberal-mindedness on all fronts. I listen to NPR."
Never fear - you won't have to listen to hours of flat news delivery followed by a marginally interesting music program featuring artists you don't actually like moderated by yet another self-important Swarthmore graduate, because now you have a handy guide to sounding like you listen to NPR daily...without having to turn the dial away from that new T-Pain single.
Step 1: Memorize Some Show Names
As you may have learned when discussing your other 'interests' like Ulysses, or experimental theatre, it's less important that you be able to actually discuss any real content, than that you be able to give reference points that sound like you must have in- and di-gested said content. ("The scene where he breaks the fourth wall, and has Molly call out to him, James, the author, just totally laid the groundwork for all literary writing for the rest of the 20th century." "I think the performances were good, but painting the sets on-stage as a sort of meta-moment of theatre is a bit played, don't you think?")
So it goes with NPR. Find a headline on your CNN widget that sounded interesting and/or quirky? You heard about it on "All Things Considered." Alternatively, Mo Rocca gave a hilarious riff on it on "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me," but you can't really do it justice (and no, you don't remember who won this week - you were cooking, it was hard to pay attention...). Form an opinion about said news story? Maybe you heard a dialogue about it on "Tell Me More." And my god, your listener should have heard the "Annyoing Music Show" this week - it was like Hanson crashed into early Michael Jackson and the BeeGees were bystanders! If anyone calls you out on any reference, note that you were listening to the online edition, and that the programming schedule is a little different there.
Step 2: Car Talk
This is the sort of blue-collar show that, if you "get a kick out of those guys, even though [you] don't know anything about cars," it completely reaffirms your own white-collar, highly educated status. Think Marie Antoinette playing shepherdess, or people who love "slumming" when they go out to bars. You now like "Car Talk." And one of these days, you're gonna call Click and Clack and just have it out, really you are.
Step 3: "Form" Your "Opinion" On Garrison Keillor
Is he a pompous ass who uses his made-for-drolleries inflectionless delivery to convince people that just naming people "Ole [oh-lee]" makes every stupid thing he says about some way of life that clearly never existed, anywhere, funny? Or is his the most brilliant comic mind of a generation, the show both a record of a charming, quaint Midwestern existence, and a wry poke at our peculiarly American way of life? "I don't really know because his droning makes me fall asleep" is not an appropriate response.
Step 4: Disdain At Least One Major Player
Really, Garrison Keillor is the only real option for this. Luckily, he's easy to pretend to hate. Alternatively, you can find the world music shows "colonialist" in their programming choices, or think that "This American Life" is condescending and altogether too precious.
Step 5: Start Dropping Those References...
Did you hear that interview with the Shakespearean expert the other night? Her opinions on Anne Hathaway's involvement in creating Shakespeare's legacy were just so interesting. I'd never thought about it that way before - and of course she was a feisty thing! You'd have to be, really; academia is still such a skewed environment, gender-wise...I do find that the economic coverage you get on public radio is just so much better, because they're not pandering to the lowest common denominator, you know? And of course there's just so much more space to really discuss ideas on radio - not like the stuff that passes for "news" over on cable, where they're always pandering to some advertising concern...You know, I think Paula Poundstone gets short-shrifted? I was listening to her on "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me," and she said the funniest thing about the Obama's recent British tour; it's just a tragedy that even for a comedian, a made-for-TV face is the only way you're ever going to win over the public...
And make sure to donate $20, or just head to your local goodwill, and find yourself one of those canvas totes. Then you can carry around your new-found sense of superiority with you at all times, right next to the programs from that African dance troupe you just loved and that Pynchon novel you're rereading, because isn't that really the only way to fully appreciate literature...
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As a fairly avid NPR listener, Morning Edition on the way to work, ATC on the weekend, marketplace on the way home and This American Life via Podcast etc. I too find myself embelishing about how much I listen to NPR so as to not seem like such a pleeb to some of my more patrician friends. Somehow "Going home to play 360 and smoke" doesn't carry the same intellectual heft as saying "I was listening to Marketplace while perusing my collection of Noam Chomsky books." So I both applaud and for the most part agree with, your post.
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Yeah..."rewatching as many house episodes as USA will offer up tonight" doesn't make me feel NEARLY as smart as saying I spend my time better informing myself through public radio...
so I fake it.
I think people want to sound like they listen to NPR because in an unrational world, it's an example of how discourse can happen in a civilized manner. In a world that's too jaded, too smart, too cool, too hip - NPR is informed, respectful, and calming with it's cool examination of the events of our world.
The music that NPR features: classical, jazz, folk, blues - are art forms that many people appreciate and cherish. I heard Marion McPartland interview a very chilly Sarah Vaughan and it brought Sarah to life for me like never before. You won't hear that on the myriad of XM/Sirius channels. (I subscribed for 2 years then dropped it.)
NPR is an example of what's right about America. So if people want to drop the fact that they listen, great. You'd prefer to live amongst a bunch of Rush Limbaugh quoters?
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I'm pretty sure I DO live amongst many, MANY Rush Limbaugh quoters...I just try to avoid too much face-time with them.
She writes for him.
I may be projecting my own experience in my midwestern city, but I totally think that the majority at NPR is a micro-reflection of the larger American racial politics in getting rid of Farai Chideya's show and not getting rid of Terry Gross' temporally-numbing interviews. I mean, it may just be me but when will we acknowledge the black diaspora is once again losing out in America, especially on NPR?
Ugh, do I HAVE to listen to Terry AGAIN, on my way to Whole Foods for my curry tofu?
For years I've been referring to something I've heard on Morning Edition as "something I heard on the radio". A friend calls it "Dry Toast", which is perfect, because dry toast is all my senses can handle first thing in the morning. But I've always been bugged by those who so ostentatiously quote NPR.
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Oooh, I like that - "Dry toast." Definitely using that from here on out in similar situations, and, as all slang goes, eventually not-that-similar situations, too.
My slang contribution (from a friend, actually): Mapquesting as a stand-in for looking up anything on the internet, especially if it's being done via blackberry. i.e. "I'm not sure if I wanna eat there. Lemme mapquest their menu."
I listen to NPR every morning and am a lifelong Democrat....but to say NPR is unbiased is false.
I listen to NPR to impress myself and no one else. Geepers! I even support it financially too!
I absolutely love this post. I do believe I will send it on to my entire law firm. I am sure it will strike a chord.
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This is one of the funniest pieces I've ever read on Huffington!
Hilarious post! I don't listen to NPR but I'm gonna start!
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So glad you liked it!
We're all entitled to our opinions. Obviously this poster has not the intelligence to appreciate news without bias, programs where you can actually learn something about current events, about books, music, health, etc.
Hohoho. I can't help but read this post without hearing one of those affected Connecticut-intellectualati accents.
I has not the capacity to read it any other way.
Oh dear. Now you tell me.
As a high school dropout, apparently I should be listening to Rush Limbaugh.
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that's just what Rush WANTS you to think. don't give in to him!
I live in the rural south, I don't have a college degree (I'm a farmer and I'm in the army reserve) and I listen to NPR every damn day. Because I enjoy it, not to impress anybody. Because it's without question the best programming old or new media has to offer. And because the hosts use their indoor voices when they speak.
I'm not sure what point you're trying to make here... that nobody listens to NPR, or that people just say they do to gain cred with their liberal friends who also support it in theory but don't listen? Or are you making fun of the people who actually do listen?
Jeez...lighten up! It's a comedy piece, in the Comedy section.
Maybe it's just a familiarity-with-Massachusetts (or more specifically, a familiarity-with-The-People's-Republik-of-Cambridge) thing, but the humor seems pretty obvious to me. I'd guess at least a cursory knowledge of over-educated, under-experienced know-it-alls would reveal the comedy here.
She's poking fun of pseudo-intellectuals, be they "real" NPR-listeners, "wannabe" NPR-listeners, or non-NPR-listeners. Discussing the things that make them feel smarter. Over lattes. With organic milk - no, make that SOY - and Sugar In the Raw.
Nice piece, methinks.
Yikes. I'd love to run into you at a party.
I think I would have gone crazy while living in Vermont, had it not been for NPR. I did not own a TV, and the only radio stations were 80's rock and country. Sure I have my giant collection of burned CD's with Beethoven, Mozart, Astrud Gilberto and Brubek, but sometimes, just sometimes, you need to be reminded that there IS intelligent life out there.... especially when you live in the middle of nowhere.
Naturally most of the "locals" made fun of me for listening to NPR..... but it was that or listening to the coyotes cornering a deer in the dead of night. That got old fast.
Fortunately, and perhaps miraculously, my one and only neighbor, with her Phyllis Diller laugh, was a classical music fan and we'd go to the symphony in Boston. It was VERY NPRish.
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That surprises me - only because I think of vermont as the stronghold of the NPR type. Outside of Cambridge, where I live, of course
If you are in central Vermont, you can listen to WGDR Plainfield, 91.1 FM or streaming online at wgdr.org.... VPR isn't the only source of news in Vermont.
What an odd article. Are you having a bad day?
I never thought of liberal arts degree as 'fancy'.
And, I resemble that remark!
(swings her well-worn canvas shopping bag over her shoulder in a snit, and heads off for a doppio at the local White Raven coffee shop, just across from the New Leaf Organic Supermarket)
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oh they're fancy. Fancier than the wine and cheese parties which are now the only outlet at which you can discuss what you learned obtaining them.
Which reminds me, I should host another wine and cheese soiree one of these days...
"(swings her well-worn canvas shopping bag over her shoulder in a snit, and heads off for a doppio at the local White Raven coffee shop, just across from the New Leaf Organic Supermarket)"
Hee hee. Nice one!
See you there! After our doppio's and speaking our peace of mind, maybe we could do a bit of shopping at the Abbott. Until then, I'll be down at Howard's and Mary Lou's!!
p.s..... you're funny!
Love this!
One of my life ambitions is to be on Car Talk.
I find myself giggling to NPR pod cast's while walking my dog or on the T. So NPR does not make me look smart but, rather, a lunatic to most MBTA traveler's.
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That's okay. Lunatics on the MBTA are like NPR for the rest of the travelers - not necessarily edifying, but something to keep the ride from being quite as boring.
Paula Poundstone was the champion on this weekend's "Wait,wait...". It's always a great day when that happens.
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Yeah, I was listening to the online edition, so I can't really do her answers justice...
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